1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to component fabrication, and particularly, to a friction stir welding method using a joining tool without a mixing pin.
2. Description of Related Art
Often, protrusions or depressions are formed on a metallic plate or elastic plate by, cutting to remove material from the plate, combining separate elements, or deforming an element using a predetermined mold. The cutting method provides products with a complex shape, but production efficiency is relatively low. Production efficiency of the combining and the deforming methods is relatively high, but it is difficult to provide products with complex shape. Thus, different methods are selected according to different requirements.
Patterns on a mold may be printed on a plate by stamping or forging. However, stamping force should correspond to a transferring area, thus a strong stamping force is needed. Therefore, the stamping method can only be used on small plates. Even so, the stamping force applied on a part of the plate may bend and warp the plate.
In order to decrease the requirement for stamping force in the stamping method, the entire plate may be heated to soften. However, it is inconvenient to apply the heating process to the entire plate if it is a large sized plate. Therefore, a method of heating a part of the plate is promoted. However, the plate may partially expand after heating, with internal stresses generated after the partially heated plate is cooled. As a result, the plate can bend and deform. It can be seen that, for a plate of relatively large size, problems occur in formation of protrusions and depressions thereon.
Therefore, there is room for improvement within the art.